The cleanup technique used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico actually made the spilled oil more than 50 times more toxic than doing nothing, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico. The findings were published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Over the course of three months, 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico (although some scientists believe that the spill is likely ongoing to this day). To aid in the cleanup, the EPA ordered another two million gallons of a chemical "dispersant" known as Corexit poured into the Gulf.

"There is a synergistic interaction between crude oil and the dispersant that makes it more toxic," study co-author Terry Snell said.

The idea behind dispersants such as Corexit is that they break apart large masses of oil into tiny droplets, that then spread out over a wider area and have less of an impact in any one place. However, oil actually becomes more toxic in smaller droplets, because it is more easily absorbed into cells (bioavailable).

"Dispersants are preapproved to help clean up oil spills and are widely used during disasters," said lead researcher Roberto-Rico Martinez. "But we have a poor understanding of their toxicity. Our study indicates the increase in toxicity may have been greatly underestimated following the Macondo well explosion."